Miami — Felipe Hernandez Espinosa spent 45 days in ” Alcatraz crocodile“, an immigration detention center in Florida where detainees reported worms in their food, Toilets that do not flush and overflow with sewage. Mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.
For the past five months, the 34-year-old asylum seeker has been in an immigration detention camp at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, where Two migrants died in January Which has many of the same conditions, according to human rights groups. Hernandez said he asked to be returned to Nicaragua but was told he had to appear before a judge. After nearly seven months in detention, his hearing was scheduled for February 26.
Prolonged detention has become more common in President Donald Trump’s second term, at least in part because the new policy generally prohibits Immigration judges Of releasing detainees while their deportation cases pass through the backlog in the courts. Many, like Hernandez, are willing to abandon any efforts to remain in the United States.
“I came to this country thinking they were going to help me, and I was detained for six months without having committed a crime,” he said in a phone interview from Fort Bliss. “It’s been too long. I’m desperate.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that ICE could not detain immigrants indefinitely, finding six months to be a reasonable maximum.
As the number of people in ICE custody exceeded 70,000 for the first time, 7,252 people had been detained for at least six months in mid-January, including 79 detained for more than two years, according to agency data. That’s more than double the number of 2,849 who were in ICE custody for at least six months in December 2024, the last full month of Joe Biden’s presidency.
the Trump administration offers plane fare And $2,600 for people who leave the country voluntarily. However, Hernandez and others were told they could not leave detention until they appeared before a judge.
The first three detainees whom attorney Ana Alicia Huerta met on her monthly trip to the ICE detention center in McFarland, California, for free legal advice in January said they had signed a form agreeing to leave the United States but were still waiting.
“Everyone tells me, ‘I don’t understand why I’m here. I’m ready to be deported,'” said Huerta, a senior attorney at the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. “It’s an experience I’ve never had before.”
A Chinese man has been detained for more than a year without seeing an immigration judge, even though he told authorities he was ready to be deported. In the past, Huerta said, she encountered cases like this once every three or four months.
the Department of Homeland Security He did not answer questions from The Associated Press about why more people are being detained for longer than six months.
“The conditions are so bad, so bad that people are saying, ‘I’m going to give up,'” said Swee Cheng, executive director of Americans for Immigrant Justice.
Waiting time may depend on the country. Deportations to Mexico are routine, but countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela have sometimes resisted accepting deportees.
Among those detained for several months are people who have received protection under the UN Convention against Torture and cannot be deported to their home country but may be sent elsewhere.
In the past, these immigrants were released and could obtain a work permit. That is no longer the case, said Sarah Houston, director of counsel at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, who has at least three clients protected under the U.N. torture convention who have been in detention for more than six months. One of them is from El Salvador, and has been detained for three years. He won his case in October 2025 but remains detained in California.
“They are detaining these people indefinitely,” Houston said, noting that every 90 days, attorneys request the release of these immigrants, and ICE denies these requests. “We’re seeing people who have already won their immigration cases languishing in jail.”
Hernandez, who does not have a lawyer, said he signed documents asking to be returned to his country or Mexico at least five times. The October 9 session was abruptly canceled without explanation. He waited months without any news, until early February, when he learned the date of the new hearing.
Hernandez, who suffers from allergies and requires a gluten-free diet that he says he hasn’t had since November, was arrested in July during his lunch break from his job installing power generators in South Florida. His wife was detained with him, but the judge allowed her to return to Nicaragua without a formal deportation order on August 28.
They both crossed the mexican border in 2022 and Asylum application. He said he received death threats after participating in marches against the co-presidents and their spouses Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
He added that if they return, they plan to go to Panama or Spain because they fear for their lives in Nicaragua. His files indicate only that his case is pending.
Yashel Almonte Mejia has been in detention for eight months since the government requested his asylum case be dismissed in May 2025, his aunt Judith Mejia Lanfranco said.
He has since been transferred from a detention center in Florida to Texas and then to New Mexico.
In November, Almonte married his pregnant American girlfriend via video call, and became a father to a daughter he had never seen in person. He was unable to attend the funeral of his sister, who died in November.
“He suffered from depression,” his aunt said. “His condition was very bad.” “He’s desperate and doesn’t even know what’s going to happen.”
Almonte, 29, came to the United States in 2024 and told authorities he could not return to the Dominican Republic because he feared for his life. In January, he passed the initial asylum screening interview.
Some detainees find relief in federal court.
A Mexican man arrested in October 2024 has been detained in Florida for a year despite being granted protection under the UN Torture Convention in March 2025.
“Time was passing and I was desperate, afraid they would send me to another country,” said the 38-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being arrested again.
“I didn’t know what would happen to me,” he said, noting that immigration officials did not give him any answers.
The man said he had lived illegally in the United States since he was 10 years old until he was deported. In Mexico, he ran his own business, but in 2023 he decided to return and crossed the border illegally into the United States. He said he was searching for safety after being threatened by drug gangs who demanded monthly payments from him.
He was taking antidepressants when he found a lawyer who filed a petition in federal court alleging he was being illegally detained. He was released in October 2025, seven months after a judge ordered his release.
But for Hernandez, the Nicaraguan asylum seeker, desperation led him to ask to be returned to the country he fled.
“I’ve been through a lot of trauma,” said Hernandez, of Fort Bliss. “It’s very difficult.” “I’m always thinking about when I’m going out.”